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21-244 PDF 2005

HIGH SCHOOL REFORM:

EXAMINING STATE AND LOCAL EFFORTS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

May 17, 2005

Serial No. 109-16

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house 

or 

Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman

Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin, Vice Chairman 

Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California 

Michael N. Castle, Delaware 

Sam Johnson, Texas 

Mark E. Souder, Indiana 

Charlie Norwood, Georgia 

Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan 

Judy Biggert, Illinois 

Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania 

Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio 

Ric Keller, Florida 

Tom Osborne, Nebraska 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Jon C. Porter, Nevada 

John Kline, Minnesota 

Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado 

Bob Inglis, South Carolina 

Cathy McMorris, Washington 

Kenny Marchant, Texas 

Tom Price, Georgia 

Luis G. Fortun ̃ o, Puerto Rico 

Bobby Jindal, Louisiana 

Charles W. Boustany, Jr., Louisiana 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

Thelma D. Drake, Virginia 

John R. ‘‘Randy’’ Kuhl, Jr., New York 

George Miller, California 

Dale E. Kildee, Michigan 

Major R. Owens, New York 

Donald M. Payne, New Jersey 

Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey 

Robert C. Scott, Virginia 

Lynn C. Woolsey, California 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Carolyn McCarthy, New York 

John F. Tierney, Massachusetts 

Ron Kind, Wisconsin 

Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio 

David Wu, Oregon 

Rush D. Holt, New Jersey 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Betty McCollum, Minnesota 

Danny K. Davis, Illinois 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Chris Van Hollen, Maryland 

Tim Ryan, Ohio 

Timothy H. Bishop, New York 

John Barrow, Georgia

Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director 

John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

Hearing held on May 17, 2005 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of Members: 

Boehner, Hon. John A., Chairman, Committee on Education and the 

Workforce ....................................................................................................... 2

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3

Hinojosa, Hon. Ruben, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas, prepared statement of ....................................................................... 33

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 34

Miller, Hon. George, Ranking Member, Committee on Education and 

the Workforce ................................................................................................ 4

Statement of Witnesses: 

Romney, Hon. W. Mitt, Governor, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, MA .......................................................................................................... 6

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 9

Vilsack, Hon. Tom, Governor, State of Iowa, Des Moines, IA ...................... 14

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 17

(1)

HIGH SCHOOL REFORM: EXAMINING STATE 

AND LOCAL EFFORTS 

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

U.S. House of Representatives 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Washington, DC 

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in room 

2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John A. Boehner 

(Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Boehner, Petri, McKeon, Castle, Tiberi, 

Osborne, Kline, Marchant, Fortuno, Boustany, Foxx, Drake, Kuhl, 

Miller, Kildee, Payne, Woolsey, Hinojosa, McCarthy, Tierney, Kind, 

Kucinich, Holt, McCollum, Van Hollen, Ryan, and Bishop. 

Staff Present: Amanda Farris, Professional Staff Member; Kevin 

Frank, Professional Staff Member; Jessica Gross, Legislative Assistant; Lucy House, Legislative Assistant; Sally Lovejoy, Director 

of Education and Human Resources Policy; Krisann Pearce, Deputy 

Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Deborah Emerson Samantar, Committee Clerk/Intern Coordinator; Ellynne 

Bannon, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Alice Cain, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Lloyd Horwich, Minority 

Legislative Associate/Education; Ricardo Martinez, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Alex Nock, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; Joe Novotny, Minority Legislative Associate/Education; and Tom Kiley, Press Secretary. 

Chairman BOEHNER. A quorum being present, the Committee on 

Education and the Workforce will come to order. We are holding 

this hearing here today to hold testimony on High School Reform, 

Examining State and Local Efforts. 

Under the Committee rules, opening statements are limited to 

the Chairman and Ranking Member. If other members have statements, we will hold them for submission to the hearing record, and 

with that I would ask unanimous consent for the hearing record to 

remain open for 14 days to allow member statements and other extraneous material referred to during today’s hearing to be submitted for the official record. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Good morning, Governor Romney. Good morning, Governor 

Vilsack—Vilsack. It is not like I don’t know what your name is. 

Just a little early this morning. I want to thank both of you for 

coming and joining us today. 

2

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN A. BOEHNER, CHAIRMAN, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

Today is the first in a series of hearings our Committee will hold 

to examine State and local efforts to strengthen education at the 

high school level. 

In States and communities across America, there is growing concern about how well high schools are preparing young people to 

succeed. Many Governors have committed to finding ways to new 

and reform secondary education, but many in the private sector are 

joining in this effort sponsoring and implementing innovative programs in our schools that can foster success. President Bush has 

outlined a plan that would expand the No Child Left Behind Act 

at the high school level to further support this goal. 

I want to commend the President for putting the issue of high 

school reform on the national agenda. This President has always 

been willing to challenge both political parties to do what he believes is needed for the good of American students and their 

schools. The President’s proposal has sparked a healthy debate. 

Parents, student, teachers and taxpayers are the beneficiary of that 

debate. 

I have always believed the Federal Government’s role in education should be limited. Some of my fellow conservatives give me 

a funny look when I say that knowing that I was the Chairman of 

the Committee in the past that passed the No Child Left Behind 

Act. But No Child Left Behind was necessary and justified because 

the Federal Government was already spending tens of billions of 

dollars a year in K-12 education before NCLB was enacted and the 

Federal Government wasn’t demanding results for children in return. Well, my goodness, what do we have here? 

For those of you that may not know, my friend over here from 

California, Mr. Miller—it happens to be his 60th birthday today. So 

I will lead the famous Boehner birthday song. It is pretty simple 

so if you don’t know the first verse, you will get it the second time. 

This is your birthday song. It doesn’t last too long. Hey. 

I think you ought to remember that, so join in. 

This is your birthday song. It doesn’t last too long. Hey. 

Happy birthday, George. 

More proof that Mr. Miller has a lot of hot air. 

Mr. MILLER. You were talking about No Child Left Behind, 

what? No. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. That is very considerate of you. We could have done without the singing, however, 

but thank you. It is a joyous birthday. 

Chairman BOEHNER. All right. Back to work. 

Today the debate focuses on not whether No Child Left Behind 

is needed, but on whether it should be expanded at the high school 

level, and those are two definitely separate issues. 

We clearly need high schools that equip students with the knowledge they need to succeed after graduation, whether their next stop 

is college or the workforce. It is pretty clear that the current system isn’t really getting the job done very well. That doesn’t necessarily mean the solution to the problem should be driven from 

Washington, DC, and it doesn’t necessarily mean No Child Left Behind ought to be expanded. 

3

I will be perfectly frank. I am a big supporter of No Child Left 

Behind. Because I am a supporter, I have doubts about the idea of 

expanding it at this time. I am not sure we are ready to require 

States to do more under No Child Left Behind, at a time when 

some are still unfortunately seeking to do less. I think we need to 

take a look at what States and communities are already doing 

proactively to transform their high schools and ask whether additional Federal requirements are even justified. 

A number of our Nation’s Governors have joined President Bush 

in calling for stronger high schools. We are honored to have two of 

them here today with us to talk about the things that some States 

are doing on their own to—on their own initiatives to strengthen 

secondary education. 

While not all States and school districts are happy about No 

Child Left Behind, it is notable that not a single State chose to join 

the National Education Association in its recent lawsuit against 

the law. The Bush Administration has been doing its part as well, 

reaching out to States and helping them to make No Child Left Behind a success. 

Mr. Miller and I jointly thanked Secretary Spellings last month 

for this approach. As we said in our joint statement, flexibility applied consistently and fairly among the States, will quell a good 

deal of the controversy that surrounds the law and bring huge benefits to American schools and students. 

Now this positive collaboration amongst the States and the Federal Government is the key to closing the achievement gap between 

disadvantaged students and their nonadvantaged students in our 

public schools. This hard-won cold collaboration is still emerging, 

and it is still very delicate. Drastic actions by any party could 

cause the collaboration to unravel. 

Today we want to explore the issue of high school reform in its 

context. We want to hear about the things that States and communities are already doing voluntarily to transform American high 

schools, because we have heard great things are starting to happen. I can’t think of two more qualified people to bring us up to 

date on this topic than our two honored guests today, and we are 

looking forward to your testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Boehner follows:]

Statement of Hon. John A. Boehner, Chairman, Committee on Education 

and the Workforce 

Governors, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here. 

Today is the first in a series of hearings our Committee will hold to examine state 

and local efforts to strengthen education at the high school level. 

In states and communities across America, there is growing concern about how 

well high schools are preparing young people to succeed. Many governors have committed to finding ways to renew and reform secondary education. Many in the private sector are joining this effort, sponsoring and implementing innovative programs 

in our schools that can foster success. President Bush has outlined a plan that 

would expand the No Child Left Behind Act at the high school level to further support this goal. 

I want to commend the President for putting the issue of high school reform on 

the national agenda. This President has always been willing to challenge both political parties to do what he believes is needed for the good of American students and 

their schools. The President’s proposal has sparked a healthy debate. Parents, students, teachers, and taxpayers are the beneficiaries of that debate. 

I’ve always believed the federal government’s role in education should be limited. 

Some of my fellow conservatives give me a funny look when I say that, knowing 

4

I was the chairman of the committee that passed the President’s No Child Left Behind Act. But No Child Left Behind was necessary and justified because the federal 

government was already spending billions of dollars a year on K–12 education before NCLB was enacted, and the federal government wasn’t demanding results for 

children in return. 

Today the debate focuses not on whether No Child Left Behind is needed, but on 

whether it should be expanded at the high school level. And those are definitely two 

different issues. 

We clearly need high schools that equip students with the knowledge they need 

to succeed after graduation, whether their next step is college or the workforce. And 

it’s pretty clear that the current system isn’t getting the job done. But that doesn’t 

necessarily mean the solution to the problem should be driven from Washington. 

And it doesn’t necessarily mean No Child Left Behind ought to be expanded. 

I’ll be perfectly frank: I’m a supporter of No Child Left Behind. And because I’m 

a supporter, I have doubts about the idea of expanding it at this time. I’m not sure 

we’re ready to require states to do more under No Child Left Behind at a time when 

some are still seeking, unfortunately, to do less. I think we need to take a look at 

what states and communities are already doing proactively to transform high 

schools, and ask whether additional federal requirements are even justified. 

A number of our nation’s governors have joined President Bush in calling for 

stronger high schools. We’re honored to have two of them here with us today to talk 

about the things some states are doing on their own initiative to strengthen secondary education. 

While not all states and school districts are happy about No Child Left Behind, 

it’s notable that not a single state chose to join the National Education Association 

in its recent lawsuit against the law. The Bush Administration has been doing its 

part as well, reaching out to the states and helping them make the No Child Left 

Behind Act a success. Mr. Miller and I jointly thanked Secretary Spellings last 

month for this approach. As we said in a joint statement: ‘‘Flexibility—applied consistently and fairly among the states—will quell a good deal of the controversy that 

surrounds the law and bring huge benefits to America’s schools and students.’’

This positive collaboration among the states and the federal government is the 

key to closing the achievement gap between disadvantaged students and non-disadvantaged students in our public schools. This hard-won collaboration is still 

emerging, and it’s still very delicate. Drastic actions by any party could cause the 

collaboration to unravel. 

Today we want to explore the issue of high school reform in this context. We want 

to hear about the things states and communities are already doing voluntarily to 

transform American high schools, because we’ve heard great things are starting to 

happen. I can’t think of two people more qualified to bring us up to speed on that 

topic than our two honored guests. We’re looking forward to your testimony. So 

without further delay, I would turn to Mr. Miller for any opening statement he may 

wish to make. 

Chairman BOEHNER. So without any further delay, let me yield 

to my friend, the birthday boy, Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to further restore 

your credibility in your caucus, I want to associate myself with 

your remarks. 

Chairman BOEHNER. I appreciate all the help. 

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE MILLER, RANKING MEMBER, 

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

Mr. MILLER. I do believe that we are thinking on the same—in 

the same vein on this issue. Obviously we share the concern of 

many when we look at the achievements of our high school students in reading and math and the fact that it has not kept up 

with the improvements that we are starting to see in the elementary school, and the fact that we see reports such as that from the 

Education Trust in secondary, which found high school achievement is lagging and the achievement gap remains wide. 

5

The Latino-white gap has grown or stayed the same for reading 

and math in most States than it has narrowed in the past few 

years. The same is true for the gap between poor and nonpoor students. These are very troubling items. 

But I do agree with you. I do not believe that concerns for these 

problems would be answered by applying No Child Left Behind to 

the high schools. While many States and districts are struggling to 

meet the goals of No Child Left Behind, we know that resources 

are difficult for the States, for the districts, and I do not believe 

that we should saddle them with those additional requirements. 

What I do believe—and I believe this is consistent, Mr. Chairman, with what you have said—I do believe we should take this 

opportunity to learn from the States to use the States as laboratories for experimentation, for efforts, to improve the performance 

of our high school students to make our high schools more relevant 

to the needs of those students, both in the workplace and in pursuing higher education goals of those same students. 

I think that we could build on and we should try to build on the 

effort between the collaboration of the Governors and the philanthropic communities and others who are concerned, the business 

communities who are concerned about the relevance and the quality of the high school experience for our students. 

I am excited to see that States are taking it upon themselves to 

set additional high standards who have participated in a number 

of programs, the diploma—the American Diploma Project, which 

starts to align standards, set higher standards for all students in 

terms of the courses they take. 

But I think we have a great deal to learn before we would come 

along, especially with the budget concerns that we have in front of 

this Congress and start to lay down a whole new set of requirements at the high school level without commensurate resources. It 

is very clear that the Congress is not going to provide those resources by dismantling the Perkins vocational programs, and we 

have made that clear in this Committee. I think both Houses of the 

Congress have made that clear. 

So this hearing is very timely and very important in terms of the 

kinds of efforts that we can participate and to encourage, to respond to and to hopefully grow those efforts by the Governors and 

by the private sector to develop pathways to the future for our high 

schools, for our high school students, for those who teach in them 

and certainly for our economy. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses this morning and 

thank the witnesses for their participation and their leadership in 

this issue. 

Chairman BOEHNER. It is my pleasure to introduce our two Governors today. Our first witness today will be Governor Mitt Romney. Governor Romney has served as the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since 2003. Prior to becoming Governor, 

he was the president and CEO of the Salt Lake City Organizing 

Committee for the U.S. Olympic Games there. 

Governor Romney has been deeply involved in community and 

civic affairs serving extensively in his church and numerous charities including City Year, Boy Scouts and the Points of Light Foundation. What is relevant to today’s hearing, Governor Romney has 

6

led the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in high school reform efforts. 

He gave strong educational effort for reform on the high school 

legislation and has entered legislation to help schools achieve a 

more rigorous high school curriculum and increased opportunity for 

post-secondary education for all students in Massachusetts. 

Then we will hear from Governor Tom Vilsack. Governor Vilsack 

was first elected Governor of the State of Iowa in 1998 and was reelected to a second term in 2002. Governor Vilsack was elected to 

the Iowa Senate in 1982 and served as the mayor of Mount Pleasant, Iowa before that. 

Governor Vilsack is the immediate past Chair of the Democratic 

Governors Association and a member of the National Governors Association Executive Committee. Governor Vilsack has played a 

large role in the improvement of high schools in the State of Iowa. 

He has entered legislation to support the efforts of schools to provide quality teachers to every classroom. He continues to encourage 

all stakeholders in education to take part in reforming their high 

schools. 

With that, Governor Romney, you may begin. 

STATEMENT OF HON. W. MITT ROMNEY, GOVERNOR, 

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, BOSTON, MA 

Governor ROMNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you also 

Mr. Miller. Happy birthday. I would express appreciation also to 

Congressman Tierney from my home State for being here and appreciate his work on behalf of education. 

There are a number of comments that I made in my written testimony I hope they could be included in the record for this session, 

but I might offer some oral comments as well, if that is acceptable. 

Clearly there are a number of reasons that we need to consider 

ways to improve education. Let me mention two in particular. 

First, urban schools are failing, and disproportionately, there are 

failing minority students who are being left behind. Calling this an 

achievement gap is a polite way of saying that minority kids are 

getting an inferior education, and they are going to get inferior jobs 

as a result of that. Inferior education in our urban schools is the 

civil rights issue of our generation. 

There is a second reason. America’s schools generally are failing 

to keep up with schools around the world. That means that America’s youth will not be competitive, and they can’t be expected to 

fulfill the kinds of opportunities and the best jobs that they would 

hope for. Beyond the sad consequence for them as individuals are 

the alarming implications of that for our Nation. 

When I was in high school, a very fortunate thing happened. 

Sputnik was launched. It woke up America’s leaders. President 

Kennedy called the Nation to boost science and math education, to 

produce more engineers, to put a man on the moon, all of these calculated to motivate and educate America’s youth, to keep America 

from falling hopelessly behind. Our generation hasn’t had its Sputnik moment yet. I am convinced it will. It will probably come from 

Asia. 

One of the great developments of our time is the economic emergence of China, India and other nations of Asia. Their poverty is 

7

thankfully being reduced. The opportunity for our employers is extraordinary, but so are the challenges. Asia is not content making 

Christmas tree ornaments. They want to build commercial jets, 

MRI machines, they want to create software and develop new pharmaceuticals. They are planning to become the innovation and technological center of the world. They want it to move from America 

to Asia. And it is on its way. 

Corporate investment in Asia is exploding, CEOs in my high-tech 

State tell me that they plan to transfer major operations there, not 

for the low cost of labor, but because of the plentiful supply of highly educated and highly motivated technologically skilled workers. 

Bill Gates reports that Microsoft’s new ideas increasingly are coming from their operations in Beijing. 

We take comfort in the fact as a Nation that we spend many 

times as much as Asian nations do on R&D. But don’t forget, they 

are paying their engineers about 1/10 of the amount that we pay 

ours. So comparing dollars is not the way to compare investment 

in research and technology, engineering and development. 

Two decades ago, American citizens and Asian citizens earned 

about the same number of physical science and engineering degrees, PhD’s annually—about 5,000 a year. Today, 4,400 U.S. citizens will earn their PhDs. 24,900 Asian citizens will earn those 

PhDs. 

America, and America’s youth are less and less competitive. Yes, 

fixing our schools is a social responsibility. It is also a national economic and national security necessity. 

As you know, Massachusetts has some of the highest student 

scores in the Nation. Our kids regularly rank at or near the top 

on virtually all national exams. We have had the equivalent of No 

Child Left Behind in our State for several years. It was passed in 

1993 as part of a Statewide Education Reform Act. 

We also require our high school students to pass a State exam 

in order to graduate. Let me show you some things that we have 

learned. First, implementing an exit exam required for graduation 

has had an enormous impact and a very positive one. Average 

scores rose sharply when the test counted, and they continued to 

rise today. On the left, you will see a chart. The red bars show—

you are not going to read those numbers very well, but you will get 

the drift. The red bars show the success rates on our graduation 

exam when the exam was given only for purposes of practice, and 

that would be in the years prior to 2003. 

In 2003, we began giving the test for keeps, and you had to pass 

it in order to graduate. There was a 20-point increase in the success rate when kids realized that tests counted and when they 

began working to make sure that they could pass that test. You 

will note that the bars continue to rise. Today some 96 percent of 

our kids will pass our graduation exit exam. 

There is something else that we learned, and that is putting in 

place this exam significantly narrowed the disparity between scores 

of whites and nonwhites. The 2-bar groups at the left show Hispanic and African-American students. The blue portion of the bar 

shows their success in 2003. The red shows their success rate in 

2006. On the right-hand side, you see the white scores. 

8

You will note that the white scores continued to exceed those of 

nonwhite students. But you will also note that the progress made 

among the nonwhite students is a great deal more significant. The 

gap between scores has been closed quite significantly. I note that 

the teachers union in our State fought this graduation exam tooth 

and nail, but it is working for our kids. More and more of our kids, 

particularly our minority kids, are seeing the benefits of rigorous 

standards, rigorously applied. 

Second, most of our urban schools are doing far worse than our 

State average. Not all of them, however. In fact, there are huge disparities between schools in the same district, where the amount 

spent per student is the same and the socioeconomic factors are the 

same. Let me show you an example. This comes from the city of 

Springfield, Massachusetts. 

The group of charts at the top represent one elementary school. 

The pie charts show on the far left-hand side the percentage of individuals that are low income—and that is about 85 percent are 

low income—the pie chart in the middle shows the percent that are 

receiving English as a second language, that is almost 30 percent 

of the student body. 

That particular class, Washington Elementary School, has success rates represented by the bars on the right. A very, very low 

success rate. Single digit success rates. 

Another elementary school in the same district, same socio-economic characteristics, has success rates as represented by the bar 

chart, below. Rates in the 80’s and 90 percentages. These are the 

same students coming from the same homes with the same leadership at the superintendent level, receiving the same amount of 

spending per pupil, average classroom sides the same. 

What we are seeing here is dramatic differences that cannot be 

explained by the standard information. Let us get to it. I will get 

to it in a moment why we are seeing that kind of disparity. 

Third thing. The reason urban districts are doing more poorly 

than State average is not because of less funding. As a matter of 

fact, we spend more money per student in our urban districts, quite 

significantly, than we do on our State average. 

This bar chart represents every State in America. The bars on 

the right represent those States that are spending more in their 

urban districts than they are spending on their State average. 

The bar on the far right represents Massachusetts. We spend 

more in our urban districts than we do on average by a greater 

percentage than any other State in America, and that is what is 

represented by that chart. 

Incidentally, the district in our State that spends the most per 

student, Cambridge, it spends almost $15,000 per student, almost 

double our State average spending, scores in the bottom 10 percent 

of success rates. So spending is not correlating with our test scores. 

Success is not related within this band that we are measuring. It 

is not correlated with our spending. 

Fourth point. We have researched at length why some schools 

are failing in the same school district and others are succeeding. 

Again within the band that we are looking at, classroom size and 

funding don’t account for the differences. 

9

What do? First and foremost, teachers make the difference. Highly qualified committed motivated and skilled teaching professionals 

are the most important factor in education. They are professionals. 

But increasingly, our teachers union insist that they be treated like 

interexchangeable, indistinguishable factory workers turning out 

widgets. If we want to improve education, we have to make teaching a profession again. It is what teachers want, and it is what our 

children need. 

Second, the best schools have good principles and superintendents. Leadership does matter. Principles need to be regularly evaluated, promote the best, demote or to move the worst. 

Third, our teachers and professionals need good information 

about the progress of the students they are teaching. You can’t improve something or someone that you don’t measure. Test kids regularly to see where we are failing them. 

Fourth, parental involvement. Poor schools have poor levels of 

parental involvement. I proposed a mandatory parental preparation 

before kids get into school and ongoing involvement thereafter as 

courses necessary to help our failing schools. My guess is that the 

reasons I have cited sound familiar to you. They are cited time and 

again by every group that I have seen that studied our education 

results in Massachusetts. 

Of course, they can be disputed by some groups that have a financial stake in one outcome or another. But in Massachusetts, unbiased task forces and researchers from across the political spectrum have reached entirely consistent conclusions time and again—

so the national studies, the answers are quite clear. The question 

is not what should we do to improve education, it is whether we 

will have the political will to do it. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Governor Romney follows:]

Statement of Hon. W. Mitt Romney, Governor, Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts, Boston, MA 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, 

I want to start by commending the Committee for your decision to engage in what 

I consider to be the greatest challenge facing our nation—how to remain the world 

leader in intellectual capital. Slowly, yet systematically, the advantage the United 

States has in producing and retaining the thought leaders of our world has been 

eroded. We are, I believe, at an inflection point that will determine whether America 

remains a strong and viable leader in a global world economy or whether, like Great 

Britain before us, we will allow other countries to become the drivers of innovation 

while the United States slowly fades into a nation of shopkeepers. 

If we are to remain the global leader in innovation, we must have a strong educational and research and development system at every level. The attention that we 

have given to K–8 education over the last few years, and the attention that is now 

being given to early childhood education, provides the foundation for our high school 

and higher education systems. Now, however, it is time to turn focused attention 

on high school reform—and ensure that the pipeline of students going from our high 

schools into our colleges and universities are ready to compete on a world stage in 

the critical areas of math and science. I also commend the Committee for recognizing that this is neither a partisan nor a regional issue, but a national one, and 

I am pleased that Governor Tom Vilsack is here with me today on this panel. 

Massachusetts has been a leader in education for the past decade. Our efforts actually pre-dated the No Child Left Behind act, and served as the basis for much 

of that legislation. We have been called the ‘‘poster child of NCLB’’, and I’m pleased 

to report that our schools in Massachusetts are making terrific progress, with 90% 

meeting or exceeding NCLB requirements. I applaud you for being steadfast in holdVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:36 Nov 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\21244 NNIXON
10

ing the nation’s schools to higher standards. Today, I want to talk about how we 

might do even better. 

The progress we’ve made in Massachusetts is due to our landmark Education Reform Act of 1993. There are four major elements of that law: funding, standards, 

assessment, and accountability. 

First, to pave the way for what followed, we made a commitment to funding our 

schools in a more equitable way. We put a formula in place that determined a ‘‘foundation’’ or minimum level of funding for each student, and another formula to determine how much of that cost should be borne by state versus local government. Over 

ten years, we increased state aid to education in Massachusetts by $2.2 billion. This 

was an average growth rate of 8.5% per year, two to three times faster than the 

growth of the rest of state government. Even through the recent fiscal crisis, we 

have maintained our commitment to fund every community at that foundation level 

or above. 

This eliminated the gap in per pupil spending between high poverty and low poverty districts. According to Education Trust, Massachusetts now leads the country 

in spending more in high poverty communities, as this chart shows.

Next, we set clear statewide standards for all students at every grade level. We 

are seen as a national leader in curriculum frameworks, and are proud to have set 

some of the highest standards in the nation. 

Then, we implemented a statewide assessment system—called the MCAS—that 

tests students on the statewide standards. This includes elementary schools—as in 

NCLB—but also high schools. Critics of standardized testing say it leads to ‘‘teaching to the test,’’ but we believe a good test is worth teaching to. Our 10th grade 

math exam tests for understanding in algebra, geometry, and statistics, among 

other areas. It includes both well-crafted multiple choice questions, as well as openended questions, where students must show their work—just like any good classroom test. Since algebra is in many ways the gateway to higher learning, it is important that both middle and high school testing stress algebra, to drive early 

course-taking. 

For science and technology, we test all elementary and middle school students, 

and we are also now piloting state tests in high school. We offer subject tests in 

biology and chemistry for 10th-grade students who have taken these courses. We 

also offer state exams for 9th and 10th graders on introductory physics and on technology and engineering, which I believe is quite notable. In previous generations, 

students typically took physics in grade 12, if at all, and the curriculum rarely featured technology and engineering. We believe our assessment program will start to 

drive instruction toward introducing physics at an earlier level—which is critical, 

since it is the basis of all modern science, the foundation for chemistry and biology. 

Similarly, technology and engineering will enter the curriculum—and help motivate 

students who have a natural hands-on interest in building and inventing things. 


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11

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, education reform must feature accountability. This includes both student accountability and adult accountability. 

Since the class of 2003, passing the 10th-grade MCAS in both English and Math 

has been a graduation requirement, and we now have 96% of our high school students reaching that goal. If I had to single out one feature that has played the 

greatest role in mobilizing our system and focusing attention on academic achievement, particularly in disadvantaged districts, this would be it. We faced a lot of opposition, particularly from the teachers’ unions and some suburban districts, when 

we first implemented the test as a graduation requirement, but thanks to a firm 

bipartisan commitment by Democratic legislative leaders and Republican governors, 

we stayed the course. 

This took some guts—and a lot of faith in our students and teachers—because the 

early pilot test results were not promising. As this chart shows, half the students 

were failing the math exam. But in the run-up to 2001, when the 10th-grade tests 

started counting for graduation, things changed. Students and teachers focused 

their efforts; schools changed practices in myriad ways, including such measures as 

double-blocks in math and English. The state appropriated tens of millions of dollars for remedial programs—including after-school and summer programs—to make 

up for deficiencies that existed before standards took hold. The result of this concerted effort was a dramatic improvement, particularly in our urban districts. As 

you can see in this chart, there was a huge 20-percentage point jump in 2001, when 

students, teachers, and the state knew it was going to matter. The picture is similar 

for English.

So, I would urge other states that are facing similar challenges to stay the course. 

NCLB does not require you to institute a graduation requirement, but it has proven 

to be critical to improvement in Massachusetts. 

Realizing that other skills besides English and math are critical, especially in my 

state’s high tech economy, I recently asked our Board of Education to add science 

to our high school graduation requirements, and the Class of 2010 will be the first 

that must pass at least one of the science subject exams I mentioned, in order to 

graduate. 

In addition to student accountability, of course we need a system for adult accountability, to track both school and district performance. It was one of the first 

approved under NCLB, just a year after passage of the law, and is now a national 

model. 

With all this good news, it might be tempting to declare victory, but while we may 

be leading the country, the bad news is we’re lagging the world. 

Compared to other industrialized countries, our Massachusetts graduation requirement is the equivalent of an eighth grade education. On an international scorecard, U.S. 4th graders start out in the middle of the pack on math, then fall to the 

bottom third by 8th grade, and by 12th grade we’re among the worst 10%. As a reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:36 Nov 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\21244 NNIXON

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cent story in Education Week put it, if this were the US medals count in the Olympics, it would be a national embarrassment. 

Amazingly, these rankings don’t even include the countries that are our real competition. India and China, in the words of Tom Friedman’s latest book, just brought 

three billion more people onto the playing field. 

If we are going to compete in the global economy, we have to set our education 

goals higher. Gone are the days of a manufacturing-based economy when an eighth 

grade education was enough. The new millennium demands a higher educational 

standard for our children, and the speed with which we reach that standard will 

define the future of this country. 

Sadly, I am not the first to say this. In fact, very similar calls for education reform are almost constant, dating back to the 1800’s. The difference is the pace of 

change. Until now, we could afford to move slowly, to tinker, to experiment, to work 

around the edges of our educational system. Today, our economy is transforming 

itself at a blistering pace, and our schools are stuck at the starting line. 

So what do we do? Some will say we need to spend more money, and certainly 

that can help. In Massachusetts we brought all low-spending districts up to a foundation level of spending, which helped those districts achieve the results I’ve described. But beyond a certain point, we’ve found that, after controlling for demographics, there is no correlation between spending and student performance. 

For example, the city of Cambridge spends almost twice the state average on each 

of their students, and they still score in the bottom 10%. 

So, you might say, well then it’s the demographics. Poor and minority kids in 

urban communities just can’t be expected to do as well as their suburban counterparts. 

Well, we’ve found that that is simply not the case either. In fact, in one Massachusetts community, and in many others just like it, you can find two schools with 

similar demographics and similar funding that are getting dramatically different results. This chart shows one example of this, from the city of Springfield.

One school has just 3% of its students scoring proficient in math, but the other, 

with very similar students, has 74%. Similarly, at the high school level, Springfield’s 

Sabis International Charter School has reached over 60% proficiency in math. We 

have a few other urban high schools that are achieving 90% math proficiency rates, 

despite high concentrations of poverty. This includes both district and charter 

schools, such as Worcester’s University Park Campus School and Boston’s Academy 

of the Pacific Rim charter school. We have to ask what leads to this high level of 

achievement. What secrets to success do these schools hold? 

The interesting thing is they’re not really secrets. We’ve found that most studies 

of successful schools—both district and charter schools—have five key criteria in 

common, and they’re not going to surprise you. Good leaders, great teachers, datadriven decision-making, parent involvement, and high expectations for all students 

are at the top of every list. 

These may seem obvious, but in too many districts they’re not the focus. The challenge is making sure schools know that those are the things that will make the difVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:36 Nov 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\21244 NNIXON

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13

ference, and getting the management tools and skilled staff in place to focus on 

them. 

First, good leaders. I’ve seen a lot of organizations rise and fall, and I’ll tell you 

that their fortunes follow the ability of the leader. Schools are desperately in need 

of qualified, competent people who are front and center focusing on the goals of that 

school’s students, and making sure that message gets through to every person in 

that school- the teachers, the kids, the librarians, the guidance counselors. Everyone 

needs to know what’s expected of them to make that school successful and help 

every kid reach their full potential. But high expectations are only as good as the 

manager’s ability to make necessary changes, and unless we give school managers 

the tools to lead their schools—freedom from overly prescriptive union contracts and 

excessive bureaucratic constraints—we can’t expect to attract the best people. 

Next, great teachers, and the same really goes for them. If we don’t give them 

the opportunities and rewards they expect and deserve, we can’t expect to attract 

and retain the most talented among us to teach. A recent report by the Education 

Trust concluded that ‘‘money alone will not ensure that more students reach [high] 

standards—or that we will close the achievement gap . . . states and schools need 

to reform the way teachers are educated, assigned, evaluated, and paid.’’ I couldn’t 

agree more. We have a teaching crisis in America, both in terms of quantity and 

quality. In Massachusetts, almost a third of our teachers will retire in the next five 

years, and we just don’t have the people coming in to replace them. 

We especially need to improve the math and science preparation of our teachers. 

Massachusetts has raised standards for teacher licensure, through testing for subject knowledge, particularly for middle and high school teachers. And we have 

brought mid-career high-tech professionals into the classroom, both as career-changers and as resources for our teachers. But for elementary teachers, where the focus 

has rightly been on literacy instruction, subject knowledge in math and science is 

often weak. We need to bring that up through strong math and science courses appropriate for prospective elementary school teachers. Some of our arts and sciences 

faculty have begun to develop these courses, but we need all of our new teachers 

to take them. It’s not good enough for our 4th-graders to run in the middle of the 

international pack: we need them to be tops in math and science, to have a good 

start for the rest of the race. 

Teaching is less and less attractive to bright students fresh out of college—particularly in math and science—who are used to working in a team-oriented, performance-driven environment. Our schools today are set up in a manufacturing model, 

where teachers teach in isolation from their colleagues, aren’t given the support or 

information they need to be successful, and have no opportunities for advancement 

or better pay unless they leave the classroom for administration. We’ve actually set 

up a system that discourages new teachers from coming in, and only provides incentives for the best teachers to leave the classroom. To attract and retain better teachers, we need to make teaching a profession again. We need to reward performance, 

and give teachers opportunities to take on new responsibilities without having to 

leave the classroom altogether. 

Teachers have proven that when given the opportunity to work with school leaders, in devising creative solutions, free from rigid work rules, they will set high performance standards for themselves and their colleagues and put the needs of their 

students first. Yet the structure the teaching profession operates under in this country treats them as if they are line employees at a manufacturing plant turning out 

uniform widgets, rather than professionals managing complex and ever-changing responsibilities. In Boston, we recently reached a new low on this front. Even after 

97% of the Gardner School’s teachers voted to convert their school to a form of charter school, the teachers’ union vetoed the change. Without explanation, the union 

President blocked what the whole faculty of that school had agreed was best for its 

students. I wonder how we can let this continue. I wonder how any union contract 

can provide that kind of authority. I wonder why union negotiations never include 

hot debates about how well we want our students to do that year, or what level of 

performance we expect from our teachers. Instead, we spend endless hours bargaining over exactly what minute of the day teachers will stop work, or what step 

or lane in the salary grid they can reach by what year. These contracts give teachers 

no flexibility to adapt to the unique needs of their students or school and no incentive to excel. The profession of teaching has slowly been transformed into just another job—something we can’t afford if we are to retain our lead against our global 

competitors. 

The third element of success is good data, and I know this will seem mundane, 

but it amazes me that something we see as fundamental in making business decisions is not viewed as equally critical in education. Teachers need better information 

in a real-time way to help them gear their instruction to each of their students. We 

14

have systems now that can tell you what level a student comes in at, where she 

should be at the end of the year, and how well she’s hitting all the marks in between. Good data is important for all our students, including our best and brightest 

students, so teachers are aware of their potential and don’t neglect them in an effort 

to get other kids over the minimum standard. 

Fourth, parents are every child’s first teacher, and their involvement is critical 

to every student’s success. In Massachusetts, I’ve proposed mandatory parental involvement through our state’s child care system, and encouraged schools to find 

other ways to get the right messages out there- what kind of TV to watch, how important it is to read to your children, and to help them with their homework. 

Finally, and most importantly, we have to set high expectations for all of our children, and make sure those expectations are understood and aligned from the Superintendent right down to the classroom teacher. We’ve added another reason to reach 

higher in Massachusetts recently. I urged our Board of Higher Education to create 

the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship, and now every high school student who 

scores in the top 25% of the state on the MCAS, and in the top 25% for their school, 

can go to any state college or the University of Massachusetts tuition-free. These 

scholarships will give all students a reason to try harder, and reward our best and 

brightest for their achievements. 

We have made great strides in Massachusetts over the past 10 years in ensuring 

that all students reach a minimum standard. We have successfully raised the floor, 

but the time has come to raise the ceiling, and start focusing as much effort on our 

highest achievers ‘‘and also those in the middle—as we have on our lowest. We need 

better leaders, more opportunities for teachers to be supported and rewarded for the 

work they do, and more parents getting involved. We need every student to have 

all the skills they need to get them ready for the challenges of the new economy. 

Thank you, and I’d be happy to take questions. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Governor Vilsack. 

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM VILSACK, GOVERNOR, STATE OF 

IOWA, DES MOINES, IA 

Governor VILSACK. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members 

of the Committee. I am Tom Vilsack, Governor of Iowa, and I want 

to thank you for the opportunity to testify about the critical issues 

facing the Nation’s high schools: The connection between high 

school rigor, relevance and relationships and the important role 

teacher quality has in leading the transformation of high schools 

from the static institutions to dynamic, vibrant learning centers. 

The case for change in America’s high school is well documented. 

My colleague, Governor Romney, has just made a passionate case. 

Our graduation rate is too low. Too many students are struggling 

learners, and much of the curriculum needs to be revamped to better prepare our young people—not just to be employed, but to be 

informed compassionate and productive citizens. 

We often hear about the challenges of the digital society and 

think it is the technology that we need to keep up with. But actually, that is the easy part. More difficult is keeping up with—even 

anticipating—the pace at which technology generates change. Our 

world is no longer predictable or familiar. 

Jobs require constant adjustment and skill upgrades. So the 

challenge for high schools is to teach and develop students with not 

only a solid foundation and mastery of academic skills, but also 

skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork and a 

love of life-long learning. 

Many noteworthy organizations, including ACT, Achieve, numerous education experts and the National Governors Association, 

have studied the need for high school reform and brought forth 

15

solid recommendations based on research. Many of these points to 

the need of a challenging coursework for high school students. 

Most States, including my State of Iowa, have begun to address 

this issue by conducting comprehensive reviews of our curriculum, 

especially math and science, and aligning it better with post secondary expectations. We are also examining the instruction methods to determine how best to reach all learners. 

One of the most successful methods to provide coursework rigor 

is to provide Dual Credit, which allows students to earn college 

credits while they are still in high school. In Iowa, we have found 

that Dual Credit is especially helpful to engage students in their 

senior year in more rigorous and meaningful work. 

As the National Governors Association has noted, Dual Credit is 

a key factor in the alignment of secondary schools with post secondary or college expectations. Congress can influence rigor and 

relevance in high school by supporting Dual Credit initiatives, encouraging collaboration between K-12 and post-secondary institutions and providing sharing incentives to States. 

One of the additional benefits of Dual Credit is the access it gives 

students to career and technical education and coursework. It is 

important to remember that high quality career and technical education is simply an alternative path, not an inferior path, to higher 

level math and science we know will be required for jobs in the future. It is increasingly recognized as an essential pathway for 

many of our students providing a smoother transition from high 

school and post-secondary work. 

One reason career and technical education is so successful and 

popular with students is that it provides relevance and practical 

application to student learning. It is often referred to as career 

education, because of its practical application to employment skills. 

Iowa is one of the several States that require career education as 

part of its K-12 curriculum. Many of our districts have cooperated 

with area colleges to provide career academies, providing high 

school students with advance and college courses in career paths 

such as biotechnology, the health sciences, agricultural science and 

industrial technology. 

Iowa also takes advantage of a successful national model, which 

I believe Representative Castle is familiar with, Jobs for America’s 

Graduates. JAG is a school-to-career program implemented in 700 

alternative high schools and community colleges and middle 

schools across the country. 

JAG’s mission is to keep young people in school through graduation and provide workplace training and leadership development 

experiences that will lead to a meaningful employment or enrollment in post-secondary institutions that will, in turn, lead to a rewarding career. JAG’s model program delivers a unique set of services to targeted young people in high school, most often the most 

likely to drop out, including 12 months of postgraduate follow-up 

services. JAG currently serves 60,000 participants in 26 States. 

The documented outcomes of this model that have been produced 

are compelling and should be taken into account when looking for 

proven methods of improving academic outcomes in success or employment and post secondary-education. 

16

On average, and I remind the Committee that these are the 

youngsters most likely to drop out. The program has been able to 

achieve a 90 percent graduation rate for youth identified by their 

schools as least likely to make it. This is a remarkable statistic. 

Overall, the program has achieved an 80 percent success rate for 

those same young people in staying on the job or being enrolled in 

post-secondary education at the end of the 12-month phase. The 

program staff has focused completely on academic achievement and 

gaining a high school diploma. In most States, that also means 

passing the high stakes proficiency examinations. 

I urge decisionmakers and Congress in each State to be supportive of programs like JAG which can produce measurable costeffective outcomes. Adding relevance to rigor is the key to success. 

Simply adding and testing the students on advanced physiology or 

trigonometry will not result in a true reform of high schools. 

The goal for students must not be just what to think, but how 

to think. How to apply that knowledge in a variety of circumstances, setting the foundation for lifelong learning. Relevance, 

teaching students why things are important, and how to apply and 

adapt information, will motivate students to invest the time and 

energy in more rigorous work that they need. 

Obviously we need to maintain the quality of career and technical education to insure that it continues to provide both rigor and 

elements. States have done this by investing funds from the Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act. It is essential that 

Congress adequately fund and support the reauthorization of Perkins as an important component of high school reform, and I certainly appreciate the House’s recent action to reauthorize Perkins. 

Both rigor and relevance depend heavily on relationships for success. The International Center for Leadership and Education points 

out that rigor has a tendency to increase as the degree of relevance 

and the quality of relationships improve. That is because students 

are more likely to engage in rigorous learning when they know that 

teachers, parents and other students actually care how well they 

do. They are motivated to try hard when they are connected, encouraged supported and consistent and are more likely to have 

higher expectations and goals and more likely to go to college. 

Quality teachers are the key to providing the caring and supportive 

relationships students need in high school. 

As U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has said, 

teachers have the single biggest influence on how much and how 

well students learn. They alone have the ability to improve the 

rigor, relevance and relationships that students experience in the 

classroom. Despite the growing importance of teachers and their 

impact on students, the profession is attracting fewer candidates 

due to what many cite as declining morale in schools, poor working 

conditions and inadequate salaries. 

We must rekindle the interest in teaching and increase teachers’ 

capacity to insure that our students have the very best instructors 

and role models, who not only know what to teach, but more importantly, how to motivate all students to their highest potential. 

These efforts will require significant investment in teacher preparation, recruitment, professional development and compensation. 

17

1See Achieve State Profiles. www.achieve.org. Also Trends in International Mathematics and 

Science Study. 2003. 

In Iowa, we have done this by investing in our Student Achievement/Teacher Quality/Initiative, now in its fourth year. The major 

components include new standards for teacher preparation programs, new teaching standards, mentoring and induction programs 

for all new teachers, minimum salaries, mandatory evaluations of 

all teachers and both individual and district-wide professional development plans that are research-based and focused on district 

goals to increase student learning. 

Iowa’s largest school district, Des Moines, has shown strong support for the teacher professional development program and has implemented many facets of the student teacher achievement initiative. Early results show marked improvement among its high 

school students, particularly in closing the achievement gap among 

struggling learners. Using the Second Chance Reading Program, 

students doubled their rate of improvement, often achieving 2 

years gain in a single year. 

As we have seen, and as U.S. Secretary of Education Spellings 

has said, teachers are indeed the single biggest influence on how 

much and how well students learn. Our experience shows that investing in teachers’ professional development will show the greatest return on investment in the reformation of high school rigor, 

relevance and relationships. 

Congress can support teachers and help them increase their capacity to target their instruction and reach more students by adequately and fully funding No Child Left Behind, especially those 

funds targeted for increased funds for professional development. Although most high schools across America may agree on why they 

need to change and what they need to change, we must not attempt to one-size-fits-all solution for high school reform. 

Just as each student has very individual gifts and needs, each 

school and district is unique in its strengths and challenges and 

must be allowed to develop its own plan of action reform and success. States look forward to working with Congress in developing 

a plan to support those local efforts. 

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to be here, thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Governor Vilsack follows:]

Statement of Hon. Tom Vilsack, Governor, State of Iowa, Des Moines, IA 

Good morning Chairman Boehner, Ranking Member Miller and members of the 

committee. I am Tom Vilsack, governor of Iowa, and thank you for this opportunity 

to testify about the critical issues facing the nation’s high schools: the connection 

between high school rigor, relevance and relationships, and the important role 

teacher quality has in leading the transformation of high schools from static institutions to dynamic, vibrant learning centers. 

The case for change in America’s high schools is well documented: the graduation 

rate is too low, too many students are struggling learners, and much of the curriculum needs to be revamped 1 to better prepare our youth—not just to become employed, but also to be informed, compassionate and productive citizens. 

We often hear about the challenges of the ‘‘digital society,’’ and think it’s the technology we need to keep up with. But that’s actually the easy part. More difficult 

is keeping up with, even anticipating, the pace at which technology generates 

change. Our world is no longer predictable or familiar; jobs require constant adjustment and skill upgrades. And so the challenge for high schools is to teach and develop students with not only a solid foundation and mastery of academic skills, but 

18

2 ‘‘Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts’’ 2004.Achieve. ‘‘Getting it 

Done: Ten Steps to a State Action Agenda.’’ 2005. National Governors Association. 3 ‘‘Reforming American High Schools—Why, What, and How.’’ 2004. Willard Daggett, President, International Center for Leadership in Education. 4 ‘‘School Relationships Foster Success for African American Students.’’ 2002. George L. 

Wimbry. 

also skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, and lifelong learning. 

Many noteworthy organizations—including ACT, Achieve, numerous education experts and the National Governors Association—have studied the need for high 

school reform and brought forth solid recommendations based on research.2 Many 

of these point to the need for more challenging coursework for high school students. 

Most states, including Iowa, have begun to address this issue by conducting comprehensive reviews of our curriculum, especially math and science, and aligning it 

with post secondary expectations. We also are examining the instruction methods 

to determine how best to reach all learners. 

One of the most successful methods to provide coursework rigor is Dual Credit, 

which allows students to earn college credits while they are still in high school. In 

Iowa, we have found that Dual Credit is especially helpful to engage students in 

their senior year in rigorous and meaningful work. As the National Governors Association has noted, Dual Credit is a key factor in the alignment of secondary schools 

with postsecondary or college expectations. Congress can influence rigor and relevance in high schools by supporting Dual Credit initiatives, encouraging collaboration between K–12 and postsecondary institutions, and providing sharing incentives 

to states. 

One of the additional benefits of Dual Credit is the access it gives students to Career and Technical Education coursework. It is important to remember that high 

quality Career and Technical Education is simply an alternate path—not an inferior 

path—to the higher-level math and science we know will be required of the jobs of 

the future. It is increasingly recognized as an essential pathway for many of our 

students, providing a smooth transition between high school and postsecondary 

work. 

One reason Career and Technical Education is so successful and popular with students is it provides relevance and practical application to student learning. It often 

is referred to as ‘‘career education’’ because of its practical application to employment skills. Iowa is one of several states that require career education as part of 

its K–12 curriculum. Many of our districts have cooperated with area colleges to 

provide Career Academies, providing high school students with advanced and college 

courses in career paths such as biotechnology, the health sciences, agricultural 

science, and industrial technology. 

Adding relevance to rigor is the key to success. Simply adding—and testing the 

students on—advanced physiology or trigonometry will not amount to true reform 

of high schools. The goal for students must be not just what to think, but how to 

think, how to apply that knowledge in a variety of circumstances, setting the foundation for lifelong learning. Relevance—teaching students why things are important, 

and to apply and adapt information—will motivate students to invest their time and 

energy in the more rigorous work they need. 

Obviously, we need to maintain the quality of Career and Technical Education to 

ensure it continues to provide both rigor and relevance. States have done this by 

investing funds from the Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act (Perkins). 

It is essential that Congress adequately fund and support the reauthorization of 

Perkins as an important component of high school reform. I appreciate the House 

recently acted to reauthorize Perkins. 

Both rigor and relevance depend heavily on relationships for success. The International Center for Leadership in Education points out that rigor has a tendency 

to increase as the degree of relevance and the quality of relationships improve.3

That’s because students are more likely to engage in rigorous learning when they 

know that teachers, parents, and other students actually care how well they do. 

They are motivated to try hard when they are connected, encouraged, supported, 

and assisted; and are more likely to have higher expectations and goals, and more 

likely to go to college.4

Quality teachers are the key to providing the caring and supportive relationships 

students need in high school. As US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has 

said: Teachers have the single biggest influence on how much and how well students 

learn. They alone have the ability to improve the rigor, relevance and relationships 

that students experience in the classroom. 

19

5The Student Achievement Teacher Quality legislation and supporting documents can be 

found at http://www.state.ia.us/educate/ecese/tqt/tc/index.html. 

Despite the growing importance of teachers and their impact on students, the profession is attracting fewer candidates due to what many cite as declining morale in 

schools, poor working conditions and inadequate salaries. 

We must rekindle the interest in teaching and increase teachers’ capacity to ensure our students have the very best instructors and role models who know not only 

what to teach but also how to motivate ALL students to achieve to their highest 

potential. These efforts will require significant investments in teacher preparation, 

recruitment, professional development, and compensation. 

In Iowa, we have done this by investing in our Student Achievement/Teacher 

Quality initiative, 5 now in its fourth year. The major components include new 

standards for teacher preparation programs, new teaching standards, mentoring 

and induction programs for all new teachers, minimum salaries, mandatory evaluations for all teachers, and both individual and district-wide professional development plans that are research based and focused on district goals to increase student 

learning. 

Iowa’s largest school district, Des Moines, has shown strong support for teacher 

professional development and has implemented many facets of the Student Achievement Teacher Quality initiative. Early results show marked improvement among its 

high school achievement, particularly in closing the achievement gaps among struggling learners. Using the Second Chance Reading program, students doubled their 

rate of improvement, often achieving two years gain in a single year. 

We have seen first hand, as US Secretary of Education Spellings has said, that 

teachers have the single biggest influence on how much and how well students 

learn, and our experience shows that investing in teachers’ professional development will show the greatest return on the investment in reformation of high school 

rigor, relevance and relationships. 

Congress can support teachers and help them increase their capacity to target 

their instruction and reach more students by fully funding No Child Left Behind, 

specifically targeting increased funds for professional development. 

Although most high schools across America may agree on why they need to 

change and what they need to change, we must not attempt a one-size-fits-all solution for high school reform. Just as each student has very individual gifts and 

needs, each school and each district is unique in its strengths and challenges, and 

must be allowed to develop its own plan for action, reform and success. States look 

forward to working with Congress in developing a plan to support these local efforts. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Let me thank both of our Governors for 

your testimony and your assistance as we attempt to plow ahead 

in terms of what role, if any, the Federal Government should play 

in the reform of our high schools. 

In February of this year Achieve, Inc., a bipartisan, nonprofit organization that helps States improve their education systems, announced a network of 13 States committed to high school reform. 

Massachusetts happens to be one of them. Can you tell us more 

about what this program is and what their goals are. 

Governor Romney? 

Governor ROMNEY. Well, our desire with Achieve is to help us 

understand in what ways we can make specific reforms that improves the performance of our kids. They are obviously attracted to 

the fact that we have an—we call it MCAS, Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, that allows us to evaluate different 

kids at different levels. By having that kind of information, they 

are able to look at our kids and see where we are succeeding and 

see where we are failing. 

It is their desire to help us implement a whole series of programs 

that will provide better teaching and provide the kinds of better 

schools that our kids need. We are particularly interested in math 

and science, where, I think particularly in science, we have fallen 

20

behind as a Nation. I am sure that is true for our State as well 

as other States. 

We have introduced a request and our State board of education 

has approved it to improve our graduation exam, not just math and 

science but also—excuse me, not just English and math, but also 

science and make that part of our graduation requirements. 

Achieve is part of a data-gathering effort that will help us identify 

ways we can improve our system. 

Chairman BOEHNER. You know, there is a great deal of debate, 

as I mentioned earlier, about what the role, what role, if any, the 

Federal Government should play in high school reform. 

I guess I would like to ask both of you, and I will start with Governor Vilsack, what role, if any, do you see the Federal Government playing in the reform of our high schools? 

Governor VILSACK. Well, Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me agree 

with your assessment at the beginning of this hearing that President Bush was appropriating—and it was appropriate for the President of this Nation to call the Nation’s attention to this issue, if 

I may just give one statistic that can be applied to virtually every 

State in the country. 

If you were to take 9th graders in my State and you were to 

track them for the next 4 to 6 to 10 years, here is what you would 

find for every 100 9th graders. Eighty-three of those 100 9th graders would graduate from high school in 4 years. 

Of the 83 that would graduate, 54 would go on to college of some 

kind within a year after graduation. Of the 54 that would go on 

to college, 37 would be in college the second year. Of the 37, 28 out 

of the original 100 would have graduated from a 2-year program 

within 3 years or a 4-year program within 6 years. 

Governor Romney, is absolutely correct. This is our Sputnik moment. The challenge to America is significant and great and unlike 

any economic challenge we have faced before. The answer to it is 

for our Nation to be as innovative and creative as we have been 

in the past. To do that, we are going to have to be a lot smarter. 

So the role of the Federal Government, first and foremost, is to 

call the attention of the Nation to this issue. We are currently having meetings in our school districts with our State Board of Education director and with our Secretary of Education to encourage 

schools to adopt a much more rigorous curriculum with additional 

requirements for math and science. 

Teachers get it, administrators get it. School board members get 

it. Parents do not. Parents are reluctant to have their students 

take more rigorous courses. They are concerned about the grade 

point average. They are concerned about the ability to obtain a 

scholarship. They are concerned about the conflict with work or 

sports or other activities. It is going to be essential for the Federal 

Government to help States get the attention of parents on the importance of this. 

Second, very frankly, it is important for the Federal Government 

to keep its promises. If you are going to require us to expand access 

to education for special needs children, or if you are going to require us to do what No Child Left Behind is currently requiring us 

to do, then clearly States and school districts have to have the reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:36 Nov 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\21244 NNIXON
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sources, hold us accountable for sure, but make sure the resources 

are there. 

Then finally, I think there are special opportunities that the Federal Government can use to put specific emphasis and focus on 

math and science, and particularly encourage young people to pursue careers, and you might look, as you look at tax issues and tax 

credit issues, a mechanism and method for increasing scholarships 

or grants in those areas, those would be three suggestions. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Governor Romney. 

Governor ROMNEY. Mr. Chairman, any Governor is going to always be anxious to talk about more money. Far be it for me to say 

we don’t need more money. 

But I must admit, when it comes to education, I believe the primary responsibility for funding our schools is at the State and local 

level. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to get as much funding as 

I can from the Federal Government, of course. 

But I would rather have you solve our Medicaid problem first, 

and then we can deal with our schools. But with regards to education, those things that we really can benefit from relate to what 

we have done with No Child Left Behind. I must admit that, having seen the impact of our State exam program, and we begin in 

elementary school, we go on through high school, we have a graduation exam and so forth, as I have described. 

Having seen that impact on the development of curricula across 

our State that more and more of our teachers are applying, the 

preparation of students who have great interest in rigor, afterschool programs for kids who are falling behind, summer school 

programs. When I see the impact on the quality of education that 

this testing is having, I appreciate the fact that the Federal Government, by instituting No Child Left Behind and demanding accountability, has had enormous impact on the entire Nation and 

improving our schools. 

That kind of accountability, Sunshined, if you will, that you require of our education system, is extraordinarily helpful, because 

we fight at the local and State level efforts to try and cloud over 

what is going on. For years, we have talked about whether urban 

schools are as good as suburban schools, but no one really knew. 

Now we have the test data coming out, we can see what the 

problems are. We can see something that is surprising. The differences within a district, an urban district, for instance, are even 

greater than the differences between districts. We see enormous 

patterns, and we find what is the real cause of the problems we 

are having in education. That kind of Sunshine is leading to solutions that we couldn’t possibly have, were it not for the imposition, 

if you will, by the Federal Government of Sunshine on what is happening at the State level, and those tests and that information is 

helpful to us to be able to free ourselves from the efforts to obfuscate. 

I would also think that the time may come that as we look at 

the data, and we see that certain districts or certain States or certain schools consistently are failing, and that they seem to be unable to break out of the cycle of failure, that there may well need 

to be specific legislation which frees those districts and those 

22

schools from the behaviors which keep them from being able to succeed. 

I am reminded of a number of things that happened in my own 

State. We have, for instance, a desire on the part of many of our 

teachers, to become part of a charter school-type program. We have 

an opportunity to establish charter schools in our State. We have 

about 50 of them. One of our schools in the Boston School District 

said they wanted to be freed of the union work rules and so forth 

and wanted to turn themselves into a charter school-like entity, it 

is called a pilot school in our system. The faculty of the school 

voted 97 percent in favor of becoming a pilot school, a charter 

school, if you will. But the teachers union, which has a veto, said 

no, you can’t. 

So there may be occasions when government is going to have to 

be able to step in and allow the faculty to become truly professional 

to allow them to take the course, as Governor Vilsack says, to have 

an awareness of the local needs and to tune the local needs of the 

school with the capabilities of the management, the leadership and 

the faculty. 

Chairman BOEHNER. I have a lot of other questions, but just so 

that all the members know, the Governors have some time constraints at about 11:30. It is expected that we may be voting even 

before that. 

So I would urge members to be as concise as you can. 

With that, I will yield to Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, I am just going to be brief because I 

would like to yield the remainder of my 5 minutes to Mr. Tierney. 

First, I just want to say that when we did No Child Left Behind, 

let us understand that we are making a major contribution to low 

income schools and the question for us was were we going to continue to spend the tens of hundreds of billions of dollars, and what 

is the return we are going to get on our investment? 

In the case of the high schools, we have no history of that involvement. We are not protecting an investment there. I think, as 

Governor Vilsack pointed out, we would do well for a while here 

to pay great deference to what the Governors are doing, what individual districts are doing, what the States are doing to make these 

determinations on how to improve this. Then if we want to come 

along and initiate a new Federal investment in those efforts, we 

might do it on a well-informed basis, with some experience preceding us, as opposed to dropping down a high school version of No 

Child Left Behind on top of this effort, with no real resources. 

This is not a $1 billion effort if you drop those kinds of requirements down on top of your systems. This is big-time trouble. I 

think we would do well to think about the Governor sort of 

ramping this up, looking for those pathways. Then the question 

would be for us in a short period of time, do we want to make this 

kind of Federal investment to help those efforts, to supplement 

those efforts and to grow those efforts. 

With that, I would like to yield the remainder of my time to Mr. 

Tierney. 

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman, and I thank the Governors 

for your testimony. I think both of you were very clear that the 

major factor we are dealing with here is the quality of teachers. I 

23

don’t think any of the information that we have received in the last 

8 or 9 years has been any different than that. But the National 

Commission on Teaching in America’s Futures tells us that one out 

of every three teachers is quitting in the first 3 years, that 46 percent are quitting after 5 years, 50 percent higher in urban districts. 

We have 3.4 million teachers currently, but 2 million are going to 

leave in the next decade. Three times as many will leave from attrition as are by retirement. So we have identified that problem. 

The answer, from what we have heard and testimony from people here and papers, whatever, is we have to make teaching more 

financially rewarding. So I think we can’t do that without money, 

obviously in some sense, but we also have to make it intellectually 

more satisfying as an experience, more professional. 

You have talked about that. I don’t think that the answer necessarily lies in bashing teachers or even their unions. But there are 

a number of good examples around the country where people have 

used collective bargaining but also had a system put in place that 

solves the hard distinctions between labor management and cooperation. They discuss and negotiate topics like differentiated pay, 

teacher responsibilities for peer evaluation processes, teachers having a key role in the remediation process, full partnership in the 

process, mentoring, classroom coaching and observation, allowing 

time for cooperation to align curriculum and improving teaching 

techniques, designing and delivering instructions, supporting the 

use of delivering data to drive the student’s education, all of those 

things. 

What are your States respectively doing to encourage those efforts of joint union and district work like they are doing in Denver 

or at the University of Pennsylvania’s Operation Public Education 

or in Toledo, Annenberg, people like that. 

Governor VILSACK. Four years ago, the State of Iowa recognized 

the crisis in the teaching profession. We made a commitment to establish a Teacher Quality/Student Achievement Program. The first 

step in this process was to make sure that our beginning salaries 

were more competitive, but also to combine that with a mentoring 

effort, a 2-year mentoring effort. In Iowa you cannot be fully licensed—completely licensed and certified as a teacher until you 

have completed a 2-year mentoring program and have been successfully evaluated as having completed that program. 

If you fail in that 2-year period, you may be given 1 more year. 

If at the end of that third year you are still not performing based 

on the evaluation, then you are no longer able to teach in the State 

of Iowa. 

Obviously, if you complete that evaluation, you then get your 

full-time certification and license, and you are free to continue 

teaching. This has been an enormously successful program. It was 

adopted with the assistance and help of the Iowa State Education 

Association. 

They were very interested in my State in making sure that there 

was support for young teachers. It is creating an environment with 

the mentoring and the professional evaluation, of really helping 

teachers get through that first couple of years. It is very difficult. 

My wife is a classroom teacher. Every teacher has a difficult time 

in those first couple of years. 

24

The second thing we did was to establish a career path for teachers that was not based solely on seniority—but that through professional development and life experiences, if you could establish that 

you were in fact a better, more successful teacher, then you would 

be entitled to receive additional compensation sooner than you 

might have otherwise received through a collective bargaining 

agreement. Once again, the Teachers Association was cooperative 

in allowing us to set that up. 

Finally, we began an experiment with variable pay in which 

school districts could set goals. If the goals were reached, the State 

would provide additional resources for that year and that year 

only, which could then be distributed to all the teachers, the administrators, even the support staff as an incentive for higher performance. 

Governor ROMNEY. Well, I would love to have some of those 

things in our State. Those are wonderful reforms, and I think 

would have an enormous impact on the teaching profession. 

Let me note to Ranking Member Miller, as well, that one of the 

great things about No Child Left Behind, if you will, just the test 

itself, we are more than happy to get money—and the more the 

merrier—but the testing doesn’t cost very much. It is very small 

dollars compared to our total education budget. 

Just having testing, even if we have to pay for it—and in our 

State we have been doing it since before No Child Left Behind 

came along. It is not much money. The key is to decide to do the 

testing and then to take action as a result of that testing. With regards to our faculty and our members of our teaching profession, 

making teaching a profession and increasingly feel like a profession 

is something I would support and Governor Vilsack said is happening in Iowa. 

People who are thinking about going into a profession think that 

if they particularly do well, they will get opportunities for advancement. They are not going to be in this little silo themselves for 

their entire career, but they may be able to mentor other teachers, 

be responsible for a department or an area of inquiry. 

They look for opportunities to grow and develop, teacher development. They would expect that if they do develop that they could get 

better pay, that their compensation will be linked, not to just how 

long they are in a position, but whether they are a superb performer, whether they take on responsibilities, for instance, in managing or mentoring other teachers. They look for opportunities for 

leadership. 

There are some who, I am sure as they begin their career, don’t 

think about going into a setting where they don’t have that kind 

of flexibility to try different roles and to be promoted based on their 

ability, and to get compensated based on their ability who would 

look, if you will, at the factory worker approach and say that is not 

what they want for their life. 

There are very few people who think of a profession as something 

where their performance will be irrelevant to their compensation or 

their promotion, and they want the opportunity to succeed and 

grow and develop and that is one way we can make teaching a 

greater profession. 

25

I think that teachers, as well as administrators, feel that there 

is a need to be able to remove the poorest performers from the system. At the same time, we advance the very best performers and 

give them better compensation, better responsibility. 

This is something which is underway in one of our cities. The 

city of Springfield has a real crisis in our school setting and a financial crisis. We are working together with the teachers union to 

help provide those kinds of tools and flexibility. I do hope that our 

union movement and our government effort will come together to 

find ways to give teachers the kind of flexibility, promotion opportunity, management opportunity and compensation opportunities 

that are consistent with being a true profession. 

Mr. TIERNEY. Governor, if I may just follow up on that. 

Mr. CASTLE. [Presiding.] Mr. Tierney, these gentlemen have to 

leave in 25 minutes. If we could go on to a few others. Great questions. 

Before I turn to Mr. McKeon, I would like to welcome you as one 

who has worn your shoes for a while as Governor. I understand the 

problems you have. I think both of you have done a great job. I follow what you have done. 

In Mr. Vilsack’s case, we chair an alma mater, so I follow carefully what he has done. You have done an excellent job here. We 

are delighted to have you there. 

With that, I recognize Mr. McKeon. 

Mr. MCKEON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank both of you for 

being here today in this very stimulating discussion. I just led a 

Congressional trip with three of our members, we went to China, 

we went to Beijing, we went to Shanghai and Hong Kong. The concern was where we are going to be in the next 10 years, 20 years, 

30 years, and I have big concerns. 

You have talked a lot about professional teachers and the career 

as a profession. I think there is a great ideal that as Governors, 

as you mentioned, you would like to have some of those reforms 

that Governor Vilsack has in Iowa. I would love to see them in 

California. I served on a school board out there for 9 years. We had 

union, and we had tenure. 

One of the things that really bothered me is you could have a 

teacher in one classroom doing a fantastic job and everybody knew 

who it was. The parents that wanted their child in that third grade 

class of Mrs. Johnson was because Mrs. Johnson was doing a great 

job. They didn’t want their student in the class next door because, 

frankly, that teacher wasn’t doing a great job, whether that teacher 

happened to be the first or second year or a 20-year burned-out 

teacher. It was a real problem. They could have both been making 

the same money the way pay was determined in California, if you 

taught for a year, your pay went up. 

If you took an educational class during that year, your pay went 

up, and they had steps and columns. It was just automatic for 15 

years, whether you were doing a good job or not, just because you 

showed up or sometimes didn’t even have to show up, get a substitute. But that is a big concern. If we are going to compete with 

China, with India, with the future, we really have some big problems. 

26

You talk about parental involvement. I don’t think it is shameful. 

When I was a kid, I didn’t want my parents there at high school. 

When I was on the school board, I noticed that had not changed 

much. Parents are very involved, usually at elementary school. 

They get a little older, the parents—the children kind of are embarrassed when they are there. But it is very important. 

They pointed out to us in China you have one child, two parents 

and four grandparents all focusing on that one child getting a 

strong education. How do we—how are we going to be able to compete. How are we going to overcome some of the impediments that 

we placed on ourselves and how are we going to stir these parents 

and grandparents to put that same kind of emphasis in our country 

to require that kind of education for our children? 

Governor ROMNEY. Well, first of all, we need to pay our better 

teachers more money, and I believe that there is a compromise to 

be reached in saying, look, we are happy to pay more for education 

and pay more for our teachers, but we want to make sure we are 

paying to the ones that are doing a really great job. Your example 

of Mrs. Johnson. She had to get more money. Whoever it was who 

are trying to get their kids out of the class ought to be out of the 

school system, or getting less money, one or the other, or being 

mentored by Mrs. Johnson, who is being compensated for that 

extra time mentoring. 

So we had to treat teachers like a profession. I know of no profession where you all get the same money and the same opportunity 

regardless of your performance. So let us make teaching a profession again. We are going to be spending in my State, hundreds of 

millions of dollars more on education per year, as we go down the 

road here. Our tax revenues are rising, our economy is coming 

back, we will be investing in education. But let us not just pay the 

same people more money to do the same. 

Let us pay more money to do the very best, to attract the very 

best and assure that we have the kind of teaching quality that our 

kids deserve. With regards to parental involvement, one of the 

things we have learned that as kids come into the school system 

at the very early ages, some parents really don’t have an understanding of the importance of education. 

Some of our parents who have been through college and beyond, 

they know how important those early years are, and they are working with their kids to read and keep them up to date. They get a 

little overnervous if their child is not moving along quickly. But 

other parents who haven’t had that experience—and maybe come 

from other cultures—don’t necessarily understand the power and 

impact of education and what a key role the parent plays. 

So we have proposed that prior to the child even showing up to 

kindergarten, that the parent attend a mandatory preparation 

course, over several weekends, describing the importance of education what kind of TV the kids could watch that is helpful, what 

TV is not helpful, how to get books where local after school programs are available for them and the like. 

Then throughout the child’s educational experience, bring those 

parents back to the school for preparation courses and link certain 

State benefits to the participation of those training programs. Look, 

27

we are going to provide 12 years of education to a child at State 

or taxpayer expense. 

The parent can, at least, give us a couple of weekends a year to 

come in and learn what is happening with their child and how they 

can support that child in the educational experience. We have focused that exclusively at our schools and our school districts that 

are in the bottom 10 percent. We are not going to worry about the 

top 90 percent. We are just working on those school districts that 

are in trouble, really pulling those parents in. 

Governor VILSACK. If I might add to Governor Romney’s comments, in Iowa we have a program called Community Empowerment. We have guided the State into 58 State districts. We are empowering people at the local level to ask the question, what do we 

need to make sure that our children are learning and ready to succeed? 

It starts really at birth. We have hospital visitation, home visitation programs that begin a process of encouraging people to understand the power they have as their child’s first and best teacher, 

they should be empowered to know that. They should be able to 

have the tools to do that. We have seen with doing that that parents become more engaged, not just elementary school, but beyond. 

Second, I think all of us, political leaders in this country, have 

a moral responsibility to educate the Nation about the challenges 

we face. You have seen it with your own eyes, you have experienced it but not every American has. It is as important to this Nation as any other issue that you will talk about. Our economic security, our overall security is tied to our ability to have a strong vibrant economy which, in turn, is connected to our ability to be innovative, which requires us to be the best-educated Nation in the 

country, in the world. We are clearly, clearly not there, and we 

must be there. 

The last thing I would say is, I think it is also important that 

we not only focus on teachers and their professional development, 

but also the administration, principals and superintendents. They, 

too, need to be educated as to how to accurately and adequately 

evaluate so you can differentiate and you can document who is 

doing the job and who isn’t doing a job so that you are in a position 

for those who are not doing the job to help them or get them out. 

Our system of stopping people early in their career and directing 

them in some other direction may, I think, have long-term benefits, 

but I think in the meantime, we need to beef up our administrative 

support. 

Mr. CASTLE. [presiding] Thank you, Mr. Kind. 

Mr. Kildee. 

Mr. KILDEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Governor Vilsack, I was very happy to hear you use the world 

‘‘moral,’’ because I do think we have a moral responsibility to our 

young people. 

Now, Governor Romney, I served in the Michigan Legislature 

when your dad was Governor, until he became Secretary of HUD. 

Without your dad, open housing never would have passed in 

Michigan. Your dad provided great leadership for one of the strongest open housing bills in Michigan. I worked very closely with him, 

and with him, that was a moral thing also. 

28

By the way, he never vetoed a bill of mine either, which was very 

nice. 

Mr. MILLER. That is a tough test. 

Mr. KILDEE. He vetoed some bills, but not mine. One of the most 

important things was that he was one of the most decent men I 

have ever met in my entire life, and I really enjoyed working with 

him. 

It is good to have you here this morning, Governor. My son is a 

constituent of yours that lives in Somerville right outside of Boston. 

I have often said that education is a local function, a State responsibility, and a very, very important Federal concern. 

It is a Federal concern for two obvious reasons: One, we live in 

a very mobile society; some educated in Michigan may wind up in 

Arizona, and vice versa. And also, we are competing, as you two 

have pointed out, in a global economy, and the competition is becoming more fierce. Is the Federal Government properly playing its 

part in that training triangle, and what more should we do or not 

do to carry out our responsibility? 

We will start with you, Governor Romney. 

Governor ROMNEY. Well, again, in my view, one of the key things 

is to shine the light on whether or not we are being successful at 

the State level or not. As you pointed out, the Federal Government 

exercises concern, and as Governor Vilsack just said, our national 

security, our economic security depend upon our having a workforce which is the most innovative and skilled in the world. And 

if we don’t, we will become a Tier 2 economy, and a Tier 2 economy 

cannot have a Tier 1 military. Russia tried it. We called their bluff, 

and they folded. And we absolutely have to have the best schools, 

best teachers and best kids in terms of their skills and technical 

capabilities in the world if we want to remain the leader of the 

world. 

And so it is a national concern, a national priority, to see how 

we are doing at the State level and to insist that our standards are 

high. And that is why I believe that what you have done with No 

Child Left Behind is beginning to gather the information and to 

say, where are the problems here; how do they stack up one school 

district to another? And I applaud that effort and encourage you 

to continue it and to continue to ask for more and more information 

about how we are doing, because if we are leaving thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of kids unprepared for the jobs of tomorrow, that is a moral crisis. It is a social responsibility we would 

have failed, and it is also a crisis for our Nation. 

So, for me, I agree with you, because you laid out that 

prioritization of who does what. I agree with that. I don’t look to 

the Federal Government to take over the local schools, to tell us 

what to do, to put in place teachers, to pay for what we are doing. 

We can do that at the local level, but I do look to the Federal Government to help set the benchmark where we can compare to how 

well we are performing, and, if we are not performing, to insist 

that we do the job or that we suffer the consequences at the State 

or local level. 

Mr. CASTLE. Thank you, Governor. 

Governor Vilsack. 

29

Governor VILSACK. Part of the challenge that local school districts have in my State is enforcing and implementing the Federal 

mandates of IDEA, No Child Left Behind. And when the resources 

are not adequate to match the mandate, then local school districts 

then have to make choices of diverting resources away from other 

priorities. It is not about more money. It can be about less mandates. But it can’t be about more mandates and inadequate resources. It can’t. If you’re going to do one, then you have to do the 

other. 

Second, I think this government, this Federal Government, really 

needs to do a lot more to elevate the significance and importance 

of math and science. Governor Romney mentioned Sputnik. There 

was a national effort, there was a national goal. People got excited 

about it. We put research and development dollars behind it. We 

encouraged young people to look at careers in science. Clearly, we 

are going to have to figure out a way to do that now, because, as 

Governor Romney suggested, the amount of engineers and scientists that are being graduated from China and Indian schools far 

surpass what we have in terms of total number. And it will not be 

long before the gap that exists today in terms of innovation, new 

ideas shrinks, and we can’t let that happen. 

Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Governor. 

Chairman BOEHNER. [Presiding] Thank you, Mr. Kildee. 

Mr. Osborne, who aspires to be a Governor, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. OSBORNE. I would hope I do as well as you have done. Your 

testimony has been very impressive and obviously very thoughtful, 

and we appreciate your being here today. 

Just a couple of comments. Governor Vilsack, you commented on 

the importance of dual credit, and that resonates with me because 

I am mentoring a young guy who is a senior in high school, and 

he goes to school at noon because he only needs two courses to 

graduate. And I feel that in some cases the senior year has become 

somewhat of a wasteland for a lot of kids because they get their 

basic requirements done, and then they shut down. And it seems 

that we are almost losing, in some cases, a half year there. 

I think your ideas on mentoring of teachers is important, and I 

know it is excellent. The question I have for both of you is this: 

Both of you have mentioned how important it is to reward good 

teachers and good administrators. And I think there has been some 

comments about this, but with the constraints of tenure, teachers’ 

unions, would you flesh that out a little bit as to how you go about 

doing that? Because I agree with you totally. There is hardly any 

area of endeavor toward excellence where we don’t reward the best 

performance, and yet in the teaching profession we often don’t. So 

do you have any further comments on that that you could add? 

Governor VILSACK. We began our process 4 years ago, and we sat 

down with leaders of the teacher association and the Iowa State 

Education Association and tried to explain to those folks the concerns that folks in small towns have about teacher salaries. Clearly, we acknowledge that they were inadequate and not competitive, 

but it is sometimes difficult to make that case when the teacher is 

making more than the vast majority of the folks living in the small 

town who have to pay the bill. 

30

And so we suggested that the way in which we could help elevate 

the compensation, but also reassure people back home that they 

were going to get results, we were going to tie the two together and 

to suggest that if you mentor a teacher successfully, you would be 

paid and compensated for that, because it is an important thing to 

do, it takes time. We suggested that if we develop a career development pathway for teachers, that there ought to be some opportunity to be professionally evaluated and have that evaluation 

shared with the community, and if you successfully pass that evaluation, you would be entitled to go to the next level, the career 1 

level, and then you would be able to go to the career 2 level, and 

then hopefully what you would aspire to is to be a nationally 

board-certified teacher and provide resources and incentives to encourage every teacher ultimately to be a nationally board-certified 

teacher. 

We have a long way to go in that respect, but we are working 

toward that. It was a conversation we had in which we essentially 

tried to explain to teachers how folks on the outside look at this, 

how the parents, folks in the small towns, particularly in my State, 

looked at this. And there was a general understanding of that and 

an acceptance of that. And then we worked through the process. 

Now, we have to provide the resources, and we need to pick up 

the pace in terms of providing the resources, but we have had a 

good start on the implementation of this plan. We did raise minimum salaries. We have seen monitoring work. We have seen 

teacher retention better, and teachers are more satisfied. We have 

more work to do, but I think we are on the right track. 

And let me just, if I might, comment. You are absolutely right 

about the senior year. For bright young people in this country, it 

is a total waste. It is about the prom. It is about football. It is 

about everything but what it ought to be about, which is math, 

science, foreign language, and maybe getting a college credit, 

maybe getting a first year or two of college out of the way. So closer 

relationships between community colleges and high schools, between universities and high schools to enable these bright young 

kids, and greater access and use of Web-based courses and Internet 

courses, I think, are part of the answer to that. 

Governor ROMNEY. Let me mention a couple of things. First, I believe you are going to see a growing willingness in this Nation to 

make adjustments to the teacher profession to improve the quality 

of education that our kids are receiving, in part because of No 

Child Left Behind and the test scores that are going to come in. 

Our MCAS exam is showing us which schools are failing, and as 

the minority community leaders see that their kids are getting an 

inferior education, they are beginning to say, why? And first the 

answer came back, well, we need to spend more money. Well, we 

actually—as you saw on the chart, we spend more money in our 

urban districts than we do in the State average by a wide margin. 

So it wasn’t money. Then they say, well, it is the classroom size. 

Look at our classroom size. They are the same across the State. It 

is not classroom size. It comes down to whether the teachers have 

the skills to be able to manage that school, whether the leaders 

have those skills. It comes down to the elements that I described, 

and it is the African American leaders and Hispanic leaders who 

31

are saying, we want to change in our schools. We want to have the 

kinds of adjustments that Tom Vilsack has been able to achieve in 

Iowa. We need that kind of flexibility in our teachers’ contracts to 

be able to allow those kinds of improvements. 

Let me note something else just because you have raised it, and 

that is we are very focused on leaving no child behind. We have 

to also be focused on making sure that no child is being held back. 

Many of our gifted kids are just held back by the average of their 

class. 

We spend vast amounts of money to make sure no child is left 

behind. Let us make sure we are also spending money to push our 

very brightest students, those that are looking to achieve. Those 

are the Bill Gates of the future, and we need to make sure we are 

investing in them. 

Chairman BOEHNER. The gentlemen’s time has expired. The 

Chair recognizes the gentlelady from New York Mrs. McCarthy. 

Mrs. MCCARTHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you, 

Governors, for your testimony. It has been very interesting. 

I was one of those that was privileged to be able to go to China, 

and one of the things we found out while we were there, No. 1, the 

respect for the teachers. But technically they actually got very high 

salaries considering the salary make-up of everybody else. 

So one of the other things that I certainly have been working on 

since I first got on to the Committee was the mentoring program 

for our teachers. It was one of the first Committees I ever sat on, 

where we had these teachers that just got out of college, teaching 

maybe 2 or 3 years, and said they were very upset with themselves 

because they didn’t feel they were qualified to teach, which brings 

us to higher education now. 

I happen to feel very strongly that we are not producing the 

quality of teachers coming out of the colleges, and I blame that on 

the colleges, because you can see some colleges bringing out excellent teachers, others not. I happen to think there should be standards for all the States on who we graduate, who gets into the programs even, and how they graduate. But with that being said, and 

hopefully we will work on that, I am very interested in the dual 

credit, mainly because we started a program in my district only 

with the community colleges working with my urban schools, in my 

suburban areas mainly because we want to give certainly those 

students that are coming from underserved schools the opportunity 

to see what college is about. Most of them don’t even think they 

could ever get to college. So, the program has, No. 1, piqued the 

interest of the students that were failing and dropping out, just 

being able to see that they can go to college, and we have seen 

their marks improve, and then all of them working much harder. 

So I am hoping that we will see more of that for everybody. 

But I guess, Governor, what advice would you give this Committee when you are looking to implant a dual credit system nationwide, because we are going to be dealing with higher education. 

We are dealing with it now. It is a program I believe in. 

I happen to think that most seniors—and I can even attest when 

I was a senior, going back a long time ago, from March on it was 

just playtime. We enjoyed it, but it was a waste of time. And even 

32

now it is more important than ever, and I appreciate your response. 

Governor VILSACK. I think it is really important for the community to get engaged and for business leaders in particular to have 

a clear expectation of what is needed for success, and to articulate 

that expectation to the community so that the relationship can be 

developed between what the student is learning and what the student will be required to do once he or she gets in the workforce or 

goes to college. 

There needs to be greater communication between the university 

system, the community college system, and the K-12 system and 

the workplace. What we did is we established an Iowa Learns 

Council, which is 38 Iowans, and they have suggested that we establish a permanent commission, or roundtable, where we have 

those individuals meeting on a regular basis, communicating with 

one another as to what the expectations are, because things 

change, and, unfortunately, sometimes education is the last to find 

out about the fact that things have changed, and so the curriculum 

is not as current as it needs to be. It is not as focused as it needs 

to be. It is not as relevant as it needs to be. So there needs to be 

communication. That is the first thing. 

Second, the success of our dual credit program, I think, is connected to the fact of how we finance our schools. We have a State 

aid to schools, and it is tied to property taxes and so forth. But we 

add an additional weighted average, if you will, for dual-credit 

courses so that there is an incentive, if you will, for school districts 

to identify youngsters who would be in a position to take advantage 

of dual credit. There is an incentive for the school district to reach 

out to a community college or college and establish some kind of 

scheduling process. There is an incentive for us to use our 

fiberoptic system to provide that course and to encourage students 

to get involved in the course. So if you increase the communication 

and make sure that there is an adequate incentive, you are going 

to see the marketplace, if you will, of education move to that and 

embrace that. 

The last thing I would say is we need to make sure that the expectations for our children are high for all of our children, and one 

of the benefits of the JAG program for these youngsters who are 

most likely to drop out is that it actually puts someone in the 

school whose responsibility it is to take care of those 30 or 40 kids. 

It is not a school official. It is not a teacher. It is someone who is 

from JAG. It is a public/private partnership financed publicly and 

privately in combination. That person’s sole responsibility is to 

make sure that youngster understands they are supposed to be in 

school, they are supposed to attend class, they are supposed to pass 

the courses, and to raise the expectations for these youngsters. And 

these kids respond to that. They respond to that challenge. 

We have a relatively small State, so I am not sure you can do 

across the Nation what we do in our State. I say small in terms 

of geography, not number of people. But we have 25 different State, 

community and university campuses across Massachusetts, and as 

a result of that, we are pushing very hard to allow our students 

to be able to attend actually on campus the dual-registration classes, and this allows them to have a college experience, begin interVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:36 Nov 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\21244 NNIXON
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acting with college kids and to recognize that their future may well 

include college. 

We have got a lot of kids, particularly in an urban setting, that 

don’t realize that really college should be the next step following 

their high school education. Advanced placement is a help, but actually being able to attend class on college campuses really opens 

the door to them, with the familiarity of what a college experience 

is like. And we believe it is helping our kids increase the percentage that are going from our high schools into college. 

Mrs. MCCARTHY. I thank you for your testimony. 

Chairman BOEHNER. Let me thank the Governors for your willingness to come down and share your thoughts with us. As you can 

see, Members are scattering because we have got several votes on 

the House floor. But I thank both of you, and tell my colleagues 

that are remaining and others that there will be additional hearings on this subject in the future, and we hope to learn more. 

Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:25 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

[Additional material submitted for the record follows:]

Statement of Hon. Ruben Hinojosa, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Texas 

I would like to thank the Chairman for calling this hearing on high school reform. 

This is a conversation that is long overdue in our committee. 

There has been a growing consensus across the country—from statehouses to the 

White House and the halls of Congress—that we need to take dramatic steps to improve our secondary schools. Currently, only 70 percent of our high school students 

earn diplomas with their peers, and less than one-third of our high school students 

graduate prepared for success in a four-year college. For Hispanic and African 

American students the graduation rate drops to 50 percent and the college-ready 

rate drops to less than 20 percent. 

Our success in reforming high schools will require a long-term commitment from 

all of the stakeholders. 

First, we must meet the challenge of adequately financing our schools. For too 

long, we financed our schools in a way that has systematically left large segments 

of our population behind. Many states, my own state of Texas included, are struggling with school finance. 

Second, the federal government must step up—not by shifting resources but by 

bringing added value that will and help states and school districts address the 

needs of those students and communities that require targeted and concentrated resources to close the gaps in educational attainment. 

That is why I introduced H.R. 547, The Graduation for All Act with my colleague 

Susan Davis of California. The Graduation for All Act provides states with the resources to target the school districts with the lowest graduation rates. Funds are 

to be used to establish literacy programs at the secondary school level and provide 

on-site professional development for high school faculty through literacy coaches. 

Additionally, this legislation provides resources to schools to develop and implement 

individual graduation plans for the students most at risk of not graduating from 

high school with a diploma. Finally, the legislation strengthens accountability for 

graduation rates. We cannot call high school reform successful if only half of our 

students benefit from increased rigor and raised expectations because the other half 

never make it to graduation. In our accountability system, the standard must be 

that every student graduates. 

Finally, we need a coordinated, national effort to improve secondary schools, 

leveraging resources from all stakeholders: school districts, local governments, 

states, philanthropic organizations, corporations, community-based organizations, 

and the federal government. 

I am hopeful that with the national attention that the nation’s governors are 

bringing to secondary school reform, the president’s commitment to address high 

schools during his second term, the investment made by major foundations such as 

the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation, and our efforts in the Congress, we will find the will to put in place the policies and investVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:36 Nov 16, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00037 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\21244 NNIXON
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ments necessary to ensure that all of our students are able to attain a high school 

diploma, preparing them for postsecondary education and careers. 

Statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich, a Representative on Congress from 

the State of Ohio 

I am pleased we will today hear from the Governors of Massachusetts and Iowa 

on what measures they have found useful in reforming high schools in their own 

states. I am especially pleased that Governor Vilsack has highlighted the importance of vocational education and its role in high schools. High school reform is an 

important piece of the puzzle ensuring that our nation’s young adults are able to 

succeed in their chosen career path. The goal of high schools should be to prepare 

students for the next step in their lives, whether that be continuing on to college 

or beginning a vocational training program. 

First, we must work to ensure that students graduate from high school. Recent 

statistics reported by the Harvard Civil Rights Project show that only 68 percent 

of students who entered the 9th grade graduated in the 12th grade. Minority students were even less likely to graduate. In today’s economy, a high school diploma 

has increasingly become a minimum requirement for workers. We must address 

issues that keep students from graduating and get diplomas in their hands. 

Students, regardless of background, should also know the options they have after 

graduation. The knowledge of training programs, entry requirements for universities, and financial aid options is invaluable for both students and their parents. 

Course work must effectively engage and challenge students, continuing their academic growth and building upon their foundation of skills. Students of all levels 

should make progress in their studies. 

Our nation is diverse and so are the students in our high schools. There is no 

‘‘one size fits all’’ for high schools or the students in them. Reforms for high schools 

should both recognize and employ that fact and aim to ensure that all students 

graduate from high school and are prepared for the next step in lives.

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